Never-ending mental wrestling match

My whole problem is that once I start looking at something a certain way, I can’t un-see it. It is a lot like those optical illusions with the faces and the vase, or the old and young ladies. All I see now is Ishmael’s evolution myth: “The world was made for man, and man was made to conquer and rule it.” For the uninitiated (those who are unfamiliar with Daniel Quinn), the operative word there is “myth.” Our concept of evolution puts humanity as an end-product, the pinnacle. This is hubris.

It is completely absurd for man to believe that the entire universe, for all those billions of millennia, were all leading up to what? This? Humanity’s rule of the earth? Look at the mess we’ve made of everything!

It also seems absurd to believe that we can’t look for answers in the very universe around us- evolutionary biology, physical laws, etc. Should religion and the natural world be at odds? Why? Because it’s the ultimate test of faith to disbelieve our eyes?

So what is the point of it all? Of life, the universe and everything? The problem is, the more time I spend thinking about it, the less sure I am, and the more likely I am to do or decide nothing. I have been doing nothing religion-wise for the better part of 15 years, with teeny bursts of altruism thrown in when the good old Catholic guilt gets to be too much. So I guess I hope to convince myself that leading a good, altruistic life is the right thing to do regardless of what religion, or lack thereof, you subscribe to.

We could put the possible solutions to the meaning of life, the universe and everything into two categories-
1.) Explanations that would be self-serving as a species (that it’s all set up to benefit us in some way)
2.) There is no divine force interested in our fate. Everything is just a set of coincidences, happenstance, etc. and we’re just swept along for the ride

Category one, the self-serving possibility seems more suspect. We want to believe in explanations that put our importance paramount. That is a huge trap, choosing to believe in a thing because it makes you feel good. Unfortunately, most religions, including Judeo-Christian, fall into category one. Think about how unlikely very orthodox, ritualistic religions are. In a universe of infinite possibilities, what is the chance that something so rigid, including things that seemingly have no effect on others like dietary practices, could be the one and ONLY right way? Quinn’s premise is much more likely: there is no one right way.

And what if we take biological evidence such as evolutionary success to be an indicator, as Quinn suggests? Where there is no one right way but rather many: diversity itself is the right way. Does that negate the very possibility of “right” and “wrong?”

Quinn rejects the notion that the human way the right way because we’ve been so extraordinarily “successful” that we have overrun and despoiled the earth. No, don’t go getting cocky, humanity. The jury’s still out on you. Humanity may have had this meteoric rise in the past couple millennia, but the fall may be just as quick and fiery. Not much different than the span that the dinosaurs “ruled” the earth. I’d think that the one right way, if it exists, has to be a way that will be sustainable within our resource constraints, and is more peacelike than warlike.

I keep coming back around to this idea I have, but I fear it also falls into category one. This idea is my justification for the time and sleep I waste in this never-ending mental wrestling match. That it serves a purpose at all. Therefore, it is so extremely self-serving that it almost has to be incorrect, but perceiving justifications for your actions is so addictive (my opiate). My idea is that there is a set of absolute truths out there, each piece known to someone who has been or is yet to come. If only someone were wise or clear-seeing enough to collect and collate it all. This is attractive but it again puts humanity in a position of central importance because they are the vessel through which the ultimate truth can be discerned. But the simple fact is that we are the only species known to us with these observational and reasoning capabilities. So is it really a category one?

What’s the point anyway? Why do I waste my time with this? I can’t hope to figure it out. We couldn’t possibly have the capability of understanding God (if there is one) or His plan (if there is one). We are not on the same level. It’s like a flea trying to understand the nuances of Shakespeare or Mozart. But I can’t let it go.

Quinn talks about evolutionarily stable strategies, or the idea that the correct ways of existing are those that ensure the survival of the species. Are people really just the expressions of infinite, random genetic combinations and permutations? Some that work better than others? Using a strictly scientific lens is cold. Let’s face it: we’d rather have the warm and fuzzy feeling we get of not only being the absolute it as a species 6 billion strong, but that we all matter as individuals. But, leading an altruistic life is still a good choice in this paradigm- it would seem to be an evolutionarily stable strategy. A species that works cooperatively and does not over-consume its resources should work better than one that’s greedy and conflicted. But how important is the individual? Isn’t my very thinking about this an effort to stand out from the crowd? Don’t I have some megalomaniacal sense that I could solve all this better than the untold billions of others who have existed and taken on the mental wrestling over the meaning of life, the universe and everything?

It is good, as Daniel Quinn suggests, to look to what God created to discern what the laws are, and maybe something of the nature of the Creator, but I see no evidence that fairness happens at all, so maybe that is a simply human wish. All I got left is that “made in His image" thing. BTW, just a comment on the issue being made recently about the masculinity or femininity of the divine, we were made in “His” image BEFORE we were split into sexes. So give it a rest and move on to other things.

To be fair, our final “test” to get into heaven should be weighted to correct for the effects of nature (genetic predisposition) and nurture (family/social/life circumstances). But this seems at odds with the value placed on evolutionary success. What’s the moral value in a big testing ground for the purpose of weeding out those unfit for a higher or better place if there is no fault or blame; just randomly varying amounts of empathy, moral fiber, circumstance, etc.?

My problem is that I can’t get past fairness. And hope. Even though there seems to be no room for these concepts in the natural order of things. Sometimes, quite the opposite. I need to believe that every one, as a newborn baby, had the possibility of doing the right things if given the proper circumstances. I wonder about this “knowledge” as the fall thing. Because it seems that the way we were as newborns and little children is humanity at its best. It’s a time of innocence and a time when almost everyone (except for severe sociopaths who are but a flawed genetic permutation) could have become a decent if not saintly person. Like, everyone, even Hitler, could have gotten into heaven at this time. Why, if you had absolute power, would you set it up like this in the first place? Are there some laws of the universe that are beyond even God? Like the conflict between good and evil?

So why agonize about it at all? Doing good works and not trashing the earth seems to be the best way to live from all points of view (Phew- one thing figured out.) What made it ok for Mother Theresa to agonize is that she did great, selfless things for people while agonizing.